Afleveringen
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Functional Neurosurgeon · Professor · University of Utah
When you think about the evolution of the human brain–just like other
animals that have specialized in speed or keeping warm or gathering food–I
feel our brain sort of specialized being creative and flexible and being
able to generate different solutions to a given problem. To me, this is
probably the most fascinating thought process that happens in the human
brain. And what I do in neurosurgery–and my subspecialty is called
functional neurosurgery–we don't deal with disorders in which there's an
anatomical abnormality inside the brain. We deal with disorders in which
there is an abnormal connection or abnormal circuitry inside the brain when
there's an issue with the way the brain functions. There's no tumor. There
are no abnormal blood vessels or anything like that. And that gives us an
amazing opportunity to really investigate how different circuits and
different areas inside the brain work. -
Earth Systems Scientist · Royal Holloway University of London
I am a Christian and I have strong Muslim and Jewish friends as well as
great respect for Hindu beliefs. I grew up in Southern Africa and I am well
aware of the depth of some Indigenous beliefs. I think that having belief
systems does give you a very different perspective sometimes. Now, in
Christianity, the concept of the shepherd, human beings are here and this
is our garden, our garden of Eden, but we have a responsibility. And if we
choose to kick ourselves out of the garden, there are consequences. And
that's precisely what we are doing. The garden is there, it's lovely, and
we can manage it, and it's our job to manage it. We can manage it properly.
We can respect it. It's for all creation, and it's very explicit that it
involves all Creation. And that's a very fundamental biblical law that you
have to respect all Creation. And if you don't do that, then the
consequences—you’re basically throwing yourself out of the Garden of Eden. -
Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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Literary Critic · Historian of Science · Educator
Author of Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of
Modern Science
There is a stronger connection between Dickinson and Darwin than the
proximity of history. Or the universality of literature. They both
understood natural science and the natural world in ways that seem strange
and somewhat surprising in the 21st century. Their 19th century attitudes
to nature and the study of it are so different from ours that when we trace
their stories, a vanished world begins to emerge. The more I consider these
figures together, the more I feel their world and my world. come alive.
Darwin and Dickinson illuminate each other. By reading them together, we
can start to understand the interconnected relationships that animated 19th
century poetry and science. -
Award-winning Climate Activist
Author of Spinning Out: Climate Change, Mental Health and Fighting for a
Better Future
There's that old saying, “blessed are the cracked for they shall let in the
light.” For a lot of people like myself, I think it's true that losing your
mind can be a proportionate response to the climate crisis. Those of us
with mental health issues are often branded as being in our own world. But
paradoxically, being in our own world can actually be a result of being
more connected to the outside world rather than less. And in the context of
climate change, it may be fairer to describe people who fail to develop
psychological symptoms as being in their own separate anthropocentric
world, inattentive to the experiences of the billions of other human and
nonhuman beings on the planet, unaffected by looming existential
catastrophe. There are layers and layers of insulation made up of
civilizational narratives that dislocate many people from climate chaos and
those whose psyches buckle upon contact with this reality are the ones
deemed mad. But this pathologizing is a defense mechanism employed by the
civilized or by the dominant culture, which ends up subjugating those of us
whose minds stray from accepted norms. There are lots of studies that show
that certain forms of psychosis are actually a form of meaning-making for
communities that feel like they have no sense of purpose. We've had
generations and generations of trauma visited upon the human species by
picking apart communities and our intimate relationships with nature.
Especially since the 80s, picking apart our inability to even consider
ourselves as part of society in a meaningful sense .That kind of pulling
apart means that we're locked in -
Award-winning Climate Activist
Author of Spinning Out: Climate Change, Mental Health and Fighting for a
Better Future
There's that old saying, “blessed are the cracked for they shall let in the
light.” For a lot of people like myself, I think it's true that losing your
mind can be a proportionate response to the climate crisis. Those of us
with mental health issues are often branded as being in our own world. But
paradoxically, being in our own world can actually be a result of being
more connected to the outside world rather than less. And in the context of
climate change, it may be fairer to describe people who fail to develop
psychological symptoms as being in their own separate anthropocentric
world, inattentive to the experiences of the billions of other human and
nonhuman beings on the planet, unaffected by looming existential
catastrophe. There are layers and layers of insulation made up of
civilizational narratives that dislocate many people from climate chaos and
those whose psyches buckle upon contact with this reality are the ones
deemed mad. But this pathologizing is a defense mechanism employed by the
civilized or by the dominant culture, which ends up subjugating those of us
whose minds stray from accepted norms. There are lots of studies that show
that certain forms of psychosis are actually a form of meaning-making for
communities that feel like they have no sense of purpose. We've had
generations and generations of trauma visited upon the human species by
picking apart communities and our intimate relationships with nature.
Especially since the 80s, picking apart our inability to even consider
ourselves as part of society in a meaningful sense .That kind of pulling
apart means that we're locked in -
Founder & President of PETA - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
I think things do change because of agitation. So agitation is vital. I
mean, nobody who is in a cause should be there to win a popularity contest,
whether you're working for children or the elderly or working for peace
animals, it's all against nonviolence, aggression, domination, and needless
cruelty and suffering. It's all for respect. So you have to be vigorous.
You have to use your voice. You can use it politely, but if people don't
listen, at PETA, we escalate. So we always start off with a polite letter,
a polite entreaty. We always try to, as I say, do the homework. So we have
the options that we put out on the table to say, look, instead of doing
this, you could do that, and we will help you transition to that. -
Computer Scientist · Mathematician · Theoretical Physicist
Founder/CEO of Wolfram Research · Creator of Mathematica · Wolfram|Alpha
I think as there is more automation, there is more kind of emphasis on this
question of our choice. The story of the development of things tends to be
what do humans decide that they care about? In what direction do they want
to go? What kind of art do they want to make? What kinds of things do they
want to think about? There is in the computational universe of all
possibilities, there is sort of infinite creativity. -
Founder of Project Regeneration & Project Drawdown
Author of Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation
We and all living beings thrive by being actors in the planet’s
regeneration, a civilizational goal that should commence and never cease.
We practiced degeneration as a species and it brought us to the threshold
of an unimaginable crisis. To reverse global warming, we need to reverse
global degeneration. -
Founder of Project Regeneration & Project Drawdown
Author of Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation
We and all living beings thrive by being actors in the planet’s
regeneration, a civilizational goal that should commence and never cease.
We practiced degeneration as a species and it brought us to the threshold
of an unimaginable crisis. To reverse global warming, we need to reverse
global degeneration. -
Interdisciplinary Composer · AuDHD Coach
Host of the AuDHD Flourishing Podcast
So for me, just removing a lot of the shame and then a lot of the energy
that I was wasting trying to fit myself into a neurotypical process or
framework or way of thinking or being. So, you know, some people call that
unmasking, just kind of removing. I was wasting a lot of energy, basically
trying to be someone else and function in a different way. And then just
beating myself up internally for not being able to do that. And throughout
my healing journey, as I really realized, Oh, that's actually what's
happening. Like there's not actually anything wrong with me being able
to...That's why it's called Love Your Brain. It's not just, you know,
tolerate your brain. Or, fine, you can work with this brain that you have.
It's like, no, I genuinely love the weird experiences that my brain can
give me and the incredibly rich, deep experience I have of the world. Like
I experience nature so deeply and so intensely. I have really strong
connections with animals. I have really great intuition, which I think is
just from picking up all this sensory data and putting it together. All
these experiences that I get to have, but I don't get to have those
experiences if I'm just trying to make myself be something else, which I
think is most people who are late diagnosed, I feel like that's their
experience. It's just like I've been trying to be someone else for so long.
It's exhausting. And then you don't have the energy then to be creative,
the carving out the time, making the time to actually create. -
Interdisciplinary Composer · AuDHD Coach
Host of the AuDHD Flourishing Podcast
So for me, just removing a lot of the shame and then a lot of the energy
that I was wasting trying to fit myself into a neurotypical process or
framework or way of thinking or being. So, you know, some people call that
unmasking, just kind of removing. I was wasting a lot of energy, basically
trying to be someone else and function in a different way. And then just
beating myself up internally for not being able to do that. And throughout
my healing journey, as I really realized, Oh, that's actually what's
happening. Like there's not actually anything wrong with me being able
to...That's why it's called Love Your Brain. It's not just, you know,
tolerate your brain. Or, fine, you can work with this brain that you have.
It's like, no, I genuinely love the weird experiences that my brain can
give me and the incredibly rich, deep experience I have of the world. Like
I experience nature so deeply and so intensely. I have really strong
connections with animals. I have really great intuition, which I think is
just from picking up all this sensory data and putting it together. All
these experiences that I get to have, but I don't get to have those
experiences if I'm just trying to make myself be something else, which I
think is most people who are late diagnosed, I feel like that's their
experience. It's just like I've been trying to be someone else for so long.
It's exhausting. And then you don't have the energy then to be creative,
the carving out the time, making the time to actually create. -
Author of The Culmination: Heidegger, German Idealism, and the Fate of
Philosophy
Modernism as a Philosophical Problem · Hegel’s Idealism
Philosophy is both an academic discipline and also something that everybody
does. Everybody has to have reflective views about what's significant. They
also have to justify to themselves why it's significant or important. The
nature of justice itself, and the various opinions that have been written
about in philosophy about justice, can get to a very high level. So there's
this unusual connection between philosophy and human life. We've inherited
from the middle ages, this incredible tradition that's now developed into a
chance for young people to spend four or five years, in a way, released
from the pressures of life. The idea to pursue your ideas a little further
in these four years you have, exempt from the pressures of social life,
allows philosophy to have a kind of position unique in the academy. In
confronting what the best minds in the history of the world have had to say
about these issues, the hope is that they provide for the people who are
privileged enough to confront philosophy a better and more thoughtful
approach to these fundamental questions that everybody has to confront. -
Neuroscientist · Musician · Author
The Emotional Brain · Anxious · The Deep History of Ourselves
The Four Realms of Existence: A New Theory of Being Human
We've got four billion years of biological accidents that created all
of the intricate aspects of everything about life, including
consciousness. And it's about what's going on in each of those cells at the
time that allows it to be connected to everything else and for the
information to be understood as it's being exchanged between those things
with their multifaceted, deep, complex processing. -
Neuroscientist · Musician · Author
The Emotional Brain · Anxious · The Deep History of Ourselves
The Four Realms of Existence: A New Theory of Being Human
We've got four billion years of biological accidents that created all
of the intricate aspects of everything about life, including
consciousness. And it's about what's going on in each of those cells at the
time that allows it to be connected to everything else and for the
information to be understood as it's being exchanged between those things
with their multifaceted, deep, complex processing. -
Psychologist
Author of Emotional Intelligence · Optimal
Ecological Intelligence · Destructive Emotions
Emotional intelligence is how you manage yourself and how you handle your
relationships. Are you aware of what you're feeling? Can you use that
awareness to handle emotions, to be positive, to be sure your upsetting
emotions don't overwhelm you? This then helps you to tune into other
people's emotions, to be empathic, and to put that all together to manage
relationships well. It turns out that's what makes an engineer highly
effective. I think it's what makes anyone highly effective. -
Psychologist
Author of Emotional Intelligence · Optimal
Ecological Intelligence · Destructive Emotions
Emotional intelligence is how you manage yourself and how you handle your
relationships. Are you aware of what you're feeling? Can you use that
awareness to handle emotions, to be positive, to be sure your upsetting
emotions don't overwhelm you? This then helps you to tune into other
people's emotions, to be empathic, and to put that all together to manage
relationships well. It turns out that's what makes an engineer highly
effective. I think it's what makes anyone highly effective. -
Author of The Wandering · Apple and Knife
Editor of Deviant Disciples: Indonesian Women Poets · Co-ed. The Routledge
Companion to Asian Cinemas
The Wandering is a choose your own adventure novel, and the reader is
situated in the shoes of this brown woman from the Global South. She's 27
and in a way, she is stuck with her life. She aspires to be middle class,
but her job doesn't allow her to achieve this social mobility. In her
condition, she makes a deal with a devil, a reference to the story of Faust
and Mephistopheles, finally getting a pair of red shoes that will take her
anywhere. But that means she will never be able to find home—that's the
curse of the shoes. The title in Indonesian is Gentayanga, which is a word
used to describe ghosts who exist in a liminal state. -
Author of The Wandering · Apple and Knife
Editor of Deviant Disciples: Indonesian Women Poets · Co-ed. The Routledge
Companion to Asian Cinemas
The Wandering is a choose your own adventure novel, and the reader is
situated in the shoes of this brown woman from the Global South. She's 27
and in a way, she is stuck with her life. She aspires to be middle class,
but her job doesn't allow her to achieve this social mobility. In her
condition, she makes a deal with a devil, a reference to the story of Faust
and Mephistopheles, finally getting a pair of red shoes that will take her
anywhere. But that means she will never be able to find home—that's the
curse of the shoes. The title in Indonesian is Gentayanga, which is a word
used to describe ghosts who exist in a liminal state. -
Environmentalists, writers, artists, activists, and public policy makers
explore the interconnectedness of living beings and ecosystems. They
highlight the importance of conservation, promote climate education,
advocate for sustainable development, and underscore the vital role of
creative and educational communities in driving positive change. Music
courtesy of composer Max Richter. -
Electronic Musician · Fmr. Computational Biologist
As technology becomes more dominant, the arts become ever more important
for us to stay in touch the things that the sciences can't tackle. What
it's actually like to be a person? What's actually important? We can have
this endless progress inside this capitalist machine for greater wealth and
longer life and more happiness, according to some metric. Or we can try and
quantify society and push it forward. Ultimately, we all have to decide
what's important to us as humans, and we need the arts to help with that.
So, I think what's important really is just exposing ourselves to as many
different ideas as we can, being open-minded, and trying to learn about all
facets of life so that we can understand each other as well. And the arts
is an essential part of that.